Tuesday, April 15, 2008

Ducks In A Row: Foiled At Roubaix

I have absolutely no interest in watching sports. Football, baseball, basketball, soccer, whatever--to me it’s about as interesting as watching a flock of pigeons fighting over breadcrumbs in the park. As such, I don’t care about any of my local teams either, and I couldn’t tell you a single thing about any of them. To me it’s just all background noise at the bar. The exception, though, is cycling. Like many cyclists, I do follow bike racing. And as a New Yorker, our home team is a team of one: George Hincapie.

George Hincapie is from Long Island, and as a teenager he used to ride away from the fields in Central and Prospect Park in the very same races that 40-something lawyers pay coaches in order to finish in the top 20 to this day. He also rode for the Toga and Mengoni teams. He’s the proverbial “local boy made good.”

Of course, what we all really want in New York is for George to win Paris-Roubaix, and I don’t have to tell you that we’ve been terribly disappointed year after year. This time, it would appear mechanical problems were to blame. Though some reports indicate George flatted, others indicate it was actually a wheel failure. According to VeloNews:

He was riding at the front on the Bersée section of cobblestones, 53km from the finish, and racing as well as he has ever ridden in the Hell of the North, when his rear wheel broke. “I had great legs,” Hincapie said, “but there was nothing I could do.”

I am very disappointed with the outcome of the race on Sunday. I had great legs all day and was doing everything right. Unfortunately, I had a mechanical at a very critical moment. I eventually got a new wheel, but the leaders turned on the gas when they saw me stop. I worked hard to get back on, but at this level of competition, there is no room for bad luck.

Note he says “mechanical,” not “flat.”

George was obviously riding well, and as usual he had the form to win. His critics always say that he doesn’t have the winning attitude, but that’s not what seems to have done him in here. After all, can we blame George when his equipment doesn’t carry him to the finish?

You’re damn right we can!

Anyone who’s followed cycling for more than a season knows you come to Paris-Roubaix with 32- or 36-spoke box-section handbuilt wheels. You don’t ride stupid Hed carbon wheels, which is what George did. I only hope they paid him a lot of money to do that. After all, that’s the only possible explanation. Because watching George roll off the line on those things must have been like watching someone heading towards some Class V rapids in a glass-bottom kayak, and unless some huge sums of cash had changed hands I can’t imagine why nobody stopped him. Hed seem to be keeping mum: the only race-related news on their site involves some freak in a half-shirt.

Naturally, Versus did not see fit to broadcast Paris-Roubaix last Sunday, opting instead to show bull riding or something, so I’ve been forced to piece together the events of the race from VeloNews's live internet coverage. Following is a reenactment featuring highlights from the race that I’ve created in order to get some closure on the event, with ducks playing all the key roles:

05:08 AM: The pelotonis still pretty much together, with all of the favorites - Backstedt, Boonen, Hincapie, Flecha, Hammond, Cancellara - in the mix.

(The favorites are together.)

05:40 AM: The pacein the peloton is high. We see Hincapie, Boonen, Backstedt and the whole CSC crew up there in good position. Flecha, meanwhile is chasing hard... but he may be facing a tough day. He's on the wheel of Pozzato, who was caught in that crash.

(Flecha trailing behind the leaders.)

05:41 AM: Backstedtlooks like he's losing ground... he may not have it today.

05:54 AM: The three leaders arejust 50 seconds ahead of a hard-charging chase group of about 25 or 30. We see Hammond and Hincapie in there. Backstedt is in there. Boonen is probably the big fav' in this mix.

(Big fav' Tom Boonen, resplendent in his euro-hawk.)

06:15 AM: One rider

we don't see in there is Backstedt. We thought he was in there, but he had a tough time in the Arenberg.

(Backstedt is nowhere to be seen.)

06:25 AM: Section 13The lead group of 30 is entering section 13 - Beuvry-la-Foret at Orchies, Km 194: 1400 m (3) - and Pozatto is back in the group. We see Boonen, Devolder, Pozzato, Hoste, Ballan, Flecaha, Hincapie, Wesemann, Nuyens, Hammond and Quinziato

(The lead group of 30.)

06:38 AM: With 56km remaining

the lead group is mostly back together. Hincapie has had a flat... he's trailing.

(Hincapie is rendered a lame duck by wheel failure.)

06:40 AM: Hincapie

has a slow leak and is not getting help from the team car. He's been dropped and is hoping for a wheel. He's finally getting a wheel, but the gap is big. He's got a big, big job ahead of him.

My lasting impression of George is him warming up for the Tour of Nutley in 1990. He was 17 and was riding rollers wearing a wife-beater and a huge gold chain necklace. He was on rollers behind his red Jeep (rumored to have been a prize from StoopidWeek) which was blasting god-awful Euro-techno from the sound system.

Was in Greenville, SC over the weekend (adopted home of GH) and there wasn't so much as a peep (quack) about him or the race there. Although, there is a Michelin museum there that mentions the tire company was essentially built on the fact they created a easily replace-able bike tire first used in Paris-Roubaix. If there ever was a segue better than that, I ain't seen it. They were showing the Masters on their jumbo-tron, so it all makes sense to me...quack.

g-I guess you probably missed the two races that were in the Greenville area, that were supported by Hincapie sports? Or maybe the fac that every club for 300 miles in all directions is kitted by Hincapie? Or the spring series put on by Hincapie sports? Or that the Carolina Cycling homepage has his picture on it? Yeah, no one cares about that guy around here.

george ain't the brightest bulb in cycling/he'll never win a classic because when the shit goes down (eg: devolder attacking with GH sitting on his wheel) George will always always always look around for someone else to close the gap. He's a good bike racer but a pussy when it comes to the classics.

FWIW, coverage of the race on versus will air this Sunday. I think they needed time to edit it down into a two hour block that would fit between bovine-induced human abuse and guys who find it sporting to leave food out for deer for about three weeks straight only to surprise the deer on an undisclosed date by hiding in a blind and shooting them with a high-powered rifle.

Yeah, Maggy was riding Zipps, and although the Velonews race recap said that he flatted both tires in the forest, other reports cited "mechanicals" for his quitting the race. I can't imagine a few flats causing him to quit the race.

Carmineall I was saying was that there wasn't any mention of the race around town last weekend. I am not sure if everything else you mentioned occured on Saturday or Sunday, but if it did, I'm sorry I missed it. It's more a statement about the lack of support of cycling in the US than Greenville.Sorry to imply you didn't support GH.

I actually watched the race on Cycling TV. Of course, as is customary with Cycling TV, it took a Paris-Roubaix caliber effort to get logged in and get the video to play without constant glitches. Let's just say that I watched the ad for Bont cycling shoes around 50 times by the time Boonen started his sprint.

British based Cycling TV reminds me of the Triumph TR6 I once owned: Cool as hell, except for some reason the wipers just came on randomly and the car shut itself off every now and again for no discernable reason.

Every year US companies pressure riders to run full carbon wheels at Paris-Roubaix, every year those riders have problems. Last year it was Zipp with Lars Michaelsen on CSC -they switched his bike onto Zipp aero carbons for the last 20km, he then did a fantastic face-plant on the first corner.

Several journalists took pictures of Hincapie's bike before the start of the race -they couldn't believe he was using a carbon aero HED on the rear wheel (which, by the way, tri-dorks, doesn't even offer an aero advantage).

Armstrong rode a Trek, which is why he never rode P-R. That, and he might have broken a nail.

These guys risk their lives based on sponsorship advice on crap products almost always linked to a website with a picture of a guy in a wind tunnel and multi-color 3D bar graphs. Wind tunnels are a great tool for generating marketing bullshit at high efficiency.

GH is another in a long line of cycling jocks that prove that it doesn't take brain to pedal a bike real fast.

George acting like Fred: "Even though I am an enormous man compared to most of my professional peers, I think I will try this hi-tech, unproven gimmickry to give me an advantage." George/Fred then goes out and busts up said hi-tech, unproven gimmickry AGAIN and AGAIN and AGAIN. Just like Fred. Because of my extensive underground cycling connections I have exclusive footage of George/Fred riding with his coach a few years back .

What you forget to mention about George is that more often than not he's felled by mechanical issues. Case in point: that "special aluminum steerer" that snapped in 2006. I still read that cyclingnews special tech feature where the guy from Trek goes on and on about how ruggedly durable the bike and its great aluminum steerer are, only to find that editor's not at the end that points out that the bike failed exactly where they'd reinforced it.

Don't pin your winning hopes to George; higher powers are working against him and will smite his bike given the chance. Don't pin them to Floyd or Tyler, either, because the same higher power contaminates their urine samples. You wonder why people support Levi? He's the only one we've got left who god doesn't seem to hate.

Also, why in the hell was Backstedt considered such a favorite for this race? His win was a total fluke; he managed to not get caught behind a huge crash with a couple guys who can't sprint worth crap. Does anyone seriously think that's going to happen again?

I rode with George at the 1990 Junior Nationals. Seemed like a nice guy (though my memory is fuzzy since it's more than 1/2 my lifetime ago) but never did want to take his pulls at the front during a couple of training rides. And he just sat on my wheel and let me pull him up the climb out of La Jolla...

rtms/fkabsnyc,i have to ask, where did the inspiration for this one come from? Did you have a collection of duck-related photos burning a hole in your hard-drive that were just waiting for a race or did you have to search them out? I especially like the Tomke shot.just quackin'

i had no problem watching the race live on cycling.tv and you can probably go watch the whole thing right now. they offered like four differrent bandwidth. 1200kbps was nice and smooth.....and versus did tour of flanders on the same day that it ran so editing time isn't an excuse. i'm tired of listening to the same paul and phil comments anyhow.

Just a note, Maaskant...4th place on Zipps. How many sets of Zipps and other carbon wheels do you see at cross races? Quite a few, and the failure rate doesn't seem any higher than with standard box type alloy types. Shit fails at Rubaix, including retro-grouch shit.

George had a special built bike with 3x spokes and box section rims, but I guess he decided against it that morning. Ultimately you are correct that deep section carbon is not truly an aero advantage, it just looks hot! Maggie is built for Roubaix, but he probably could have tried the Zipp cyclocross rims or Pave specials as I think they are called. Also I read on Cyclingnews that Boonen demolished his rear wheel which actually was a purpose built Roubaix special, and still managed to win. I am still curious why he used different rims front and rear to start?

Thanks for the pictorial play-by-play of Paris-Roubaix. Now I don't have to wait for the 1/2 hour recap to show up 4 months from now wedged between the nascar-themed ultimate hockey fighting fishing extravaganza marathon slated to run until forever on Versus.

...re: "ducks in a row: foiled at roubaix"...be sure & leave the foil on the duck through most of the cooking process to retain the juices in the meat...i suggest w/ a half hour cooking time left, you remove the foil & continue to baste for that beautiful brown glazed look...

When George's rear wheel failed, his teammate, Maeskant - was at the front of the lead pack, and led the attack to drop him, instead of blocking. They quickly put two minutes gap on him, as George screaming into his radio for the team car. Once re-wheeled George chased valiantly but with Maeskant and 20 other guys pounding the pavement all-out, knowing that they could drop a contender, there was no chance for him to bridge up. This kind of disarray within the team would *never* have happened at Disco, under Demol. George had great legs on the day - that he recovered enough to place 9th is exceptional. Maeskant screwed him though.

Another tidbit - Boonen thought that Cancellara's attempted acceleration in the last mile or two before the velodrome was nothing special. That's the same Cancellara who has won five races this year, and who is world TT champ. Kinda makes you wonder what Boonen would actually consider an impressive display of power.

...jim, put the foil back on...yer browning to quickly...hincapie's team mate at the front was bernard eisel who eventually ended up in 17th place, 8 sec back of george...probably george's little "fuck you, bernie" finishing move...

Sorry, watched it on cycling tv. Sure looked like Maeskant was hammering. I didn't know it was Eisel, but a High Road guy was on the front hammering, and the pack accellerated hard, hence the four or five man chase group that Hincapie picked up over the next ten minutes after that. They didn't spit themselves out the back of the lead group, they were spat. I'm not alleging a conspiracy, just disarray. Now if I'd said it was a plot, then you could tell me my tinfoil hat is on too tight. As it is, it's plenty loose, and it's doing a fine job of stopping the CIA / Johann Bruyneel mind control sattelites' efforts to make me do intervals and watch my diet.

Like an aging junkie I joylessly clicked on BSNYC for my fix. Hoping but never getting that high like the first time I used Snob. But, the DUCKS! Oh man, its like some crazy new drug. I'm high again!Anyway, carbon rims seem a poor choice, but were there any carbon rims that survived the race? How many aluminum wheels failed? hmmmm....

...speaking of george, note tommeke's statement at the finish..."there were two other riders today & i think these guys are a 'level higher' than flecha & hincapie" as he related how he felt that this was a greater victory than when he beat george & juan antonio in similar circumstances 3 yrs ago...ouch...understandable considering cancellara's palmares & ballan's ronde win last year but ouch, nonetheless......nice to come in 5 min down after a day in hell, w/ mechanicals & hear such uplifting appraisement......i'd almost feel bad for george (who i do respect) but after watching him piss away last weeks ronde when he could have gone w/ devolder at 25 k's to go but stayed to mark tommeke, eh, not so much...

Dammit, I knew drinking the entire case of Delirium Tremens before 8:00 AM on Sunday was a big mistake. I'll just reach into my suitcase of Alzheimers, be quiet and go away now - I'm starting to be as wildly inaccurate as Phil Liggett.

This is what I left for him on his guestbook. I wonder if it will be posted?

Dumbass! Should have used your specific proper bike for the race. Using full carbon wheels? You're a moron. Rely on your riding skills instead of equipment. Great decision you made to use your regular giant tcr! Your bike didn't fail, you did! Ha! Put that in your pipe and smoke it!

One thing I noted before the race was the truly crappy draw High Road got in the caravan lottery--24th I think. A few teams complained about it, and I imagine it may have been a factor in George's case. By the way, Hincapie Sports is not adding a duck to its logo--that's a canard.

The reason I am so late in contributing today as I broke my carbon fandangler in the last hill section and got dropped waiting for the team Fiat Bambino which was still struggling up the first rise.Least Georgie Boy can sing that famous Ol Blue Eyes line “I did it my way” And as for drilling holes in stems, he was looking for the airy….. oops aero advantage. Works wonders on hubs as well

Ducks at the hell of the north! hah! you quack me up! Anyway, so I headed home after my morning ride on April 13 because I got tired of feeling like a slug while some local cat something dogs chased their tails around central park. I thought buying a cycling.tv subscription to watch paris-roubaix might ease the pain. So I head to the website and low and behold, I see Paris Roubaix streaming, with around 54km to go. No subscription, nothing! Magic! I shouldn't ask, but how did that happen and did anyone experience the magic that I did? BSNY, glad you didn't!

The randonneuring community is always going off on destroying wheelsets and not using too much carbon - I forwarded your comments to a few of them and they ate it up with a rando spoon. Here is rider #3's bike - love the part about an all non-carbon cockpit and using long reach brakes to allow mudclearance.

Mark 12:28, you saidbovine-induced human abuseI know what you mean but I think you meanhuman-induced bovine abusebut if you're right and I'm wrongwhat channel and what time is it on?Oh yeah and great post RTMS

Last time I checked in order to get beat by Boonen at the velodrome, you have to make to the velodrome. Big George would have done his usual, no atack, waiting for the other guys stem to break manuver. He clearly was in the pass fail school of racing tactics.

I guess Jonathan Vaughters and his witty set of turtlenecks and glasses was no match to povide common sense to the biggest guy in the peleton to use aluminum wheels.

Check out the Cervelo web site, they have a video of riders breaking wheels on a test ride on the pave. enough evidence for me.

i've said it before years ago, and i'll say it again. hincapie is a pussy. he waisted his 'best' years being lancey's domestique. he should have jumped ship over to a belgian team (with better mechanics who know what steerer tubes and wheels survive P-R) a long time ago if he wanted to win something. he's like levi... total whiner.

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About Me

While I love cycling and embrace it in all its forms, I'm also extremely critical. So I present to you my venting for your amusement and betterment. No offense meant to the critiqued. Always keep riding!